Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Let’s play a word association game. The only rule is that you have to
answer with the name of a company.

I say, “magical.”

You say, “Disney,” right? It’s the name that comes immediately to mind, thanks in part
to their own branding, and in part to the fact that many of us have had some
kind of magical experience--at the movies, at a park, on a cruise--with the
company through the years.

Now, let’s try again, but you need a new answer. I say, “magical.”

You say, ah,
“Apple?” I think that’s right. The products produced by Apple in
the last few years, especially pods, phones and pads, have been pretty close to
magical. This isn’t quite the same as Disney, but more along the
lines of Arthur C. Clarke’s assertion that any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic.

I mention this in reference to The Longevity Project, a twenty year study by Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin. Recently published, it concludes that longevity is a function of three roughly equal factors: genes, chance, and lifestyle.

Genes are genes. You get what you get.

Chance has to do with major life events, such as fighting in World War II (where those deployed overseas died at a greater rate after the war than those deployed at home), or the impact of divorce, which turns out to be the single strongest social predictor of a child’s longevity.

The factor over which we presumably have the greatest control, however, is lifestyle, and what Friedman and Martin found will warm the cockles of every well ordered heart out there. What makes for a long life is not happiness, optimism, or even equanimity. “The findings clearly revealed that the best childhood personality predictor of longevity was conscientiousness, the qualities of a prudent, persistent, well-organized person—somewhat obsessive and not at all carefree.”